Live: Shea Stadium, New York

The concert did not sell out, with 11,000 of the 55,600 tickets still available. Nonetheless, The Beatles made more money from their appearance than they had in 1965, receiving $189,000 – 65 per cent of the gross takings of $292,000.

Curiously enough the second Shea Stadium concert had about 11,000 seats unsold. So it was a pretty unsettling time. And it was against this background that they said, 'Right, we definitely won't do any more. We are going to have a break and then we are going into the studio to make a record.'

During the performance of Day Tripper hundreds of fans broke through barriers and attempted to reach the stage. They were held back by security guards and none managed to get close to The Beatles.

When they played Shea Stadium again, for me it blended in with the first one, though it was said there were slightly fewer people there than the year before. For some reason I missed the police van that was taking us. I had gone back for something, and before I could get in the van, they slammed the doors and of it went. I was left at the hotel, so I got a cab, but that broke down in Harlem. Another cab took me to the stadium, but there were thousands of people, and I thought: 'Oh God, they're really going to let me in! I'm going to just knock on the door and say, "I'm with The Beatles?"' Then I saw the four of them banging out of a window, and they saw me wandering round the car park. It was like magic; they were shouting, 'There he is! Let him in!'

I was there too. It went by so fast. My memories are good but blurry. I just remember the sound when they came out of the dugout was like something I never heard before. It was the happiest night of my young life.

Wow that’s great (“greatful” dead??) gayleg54…but that song, Casey Jones wasn’t released until 1970-four years after you say you and everyone were singing it. That was some pretty good LSD-25 in ’66 huh?

PIERCINGLY loud before the lads showed up, then it got LOUDER — the songs were muffled at best, they were tiny little things -w-a-y- down on the field, John was laughing because even he couldn’t hear himself sing and realized that he could be singing anything and no one woudl care, and their miniscule set of “amplifiers” were what was needed for perhaps the Cavern Club, not Shea Statuim (yet, the painfully loudest I’ve ever heard was … Jackson Browne?!, who for some reason had every amp set on 11, ‘nuther story!).

They played some songs from Rubber Soul, and I kid of knew their musinc was now studio, not stage — “Yesterday” to obliterating screams?

Special personal thanks to Magnificent Mary Beth for expanding her love of pop performers and music from Rickie Nelson, and bringing us along for the ride — box seats over home plate — wow!
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My sister and I, along with our brother as chaperon saw the Beatles. I remember Bobby Ebb and the Ronettes but forgot the other opening acts!! We were in the orange section, which would be the nosebleed section. We screamed along with everyone else!!

Pretty sure that in 1966 at Shea, it was Roy Head instead of the Remains. The Remains may have played other dates on the tour, but I am pretty sure that this was not one of them. I remember writing a comment in my souvenir program about Roy’s enthusiastic and athletic performance, and I completely do not remember the Remains being on the bill at all. The rest of the opening acts are correct.

Shea 66;
One bit is unusual for this show though. I don´t think I have heard Paul say “Welcome!” to any audience at any time before the first song starts. Usually they just shouted ‘wo wo w’o and ‘hello hello’ to test that the microphones were on.
To Mary, regarding your 2012 post about photos; there are lots of them. I have collected about 50+ different images. To Richard Lawless, regarding film: there are various clips from different angles. Some closer than others, sort of professional/documentary clips, and some very distant audience films. I´d like to think that most of those I have seen have the correct sound, but it´s difficult to tell as many films of the day were silent and dubbed in more recent years.

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